By Priscilla Campbell,
Minna
Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, has called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate the utilization of the purported $181 million Islamic Development Bank (IDP) loan to clear the air on the matter.
The governor was reacting to the allegations by the former Governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu that he should account for how his administration spent a $181 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank.
During the official flag-off of the 2019 local government council election campaign in Minna, Bello said that such money never entered into the account of the state.
He insisted that it was only the anti-graft commission that could determine whether the money was released or not.
It would be recalled that the former governor Aliyu had accused the government of Bello not putting to use the $181 million IDB loan that had entered into the state’s account after he had left the office in 2015.
Aliyu said that the loan was supposed to be used for the dualization of the Minna-Bida road and called on the people of the state to place a demand on the government to give an account of the money and the purpose it was expended for.
According to him, “I went to Jeddah in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to seek an interest-free loan to dualize the Minna-Bida road, but by the time the money came I had left office in 2015.” But, Bello explained that the National and State Assembly had approved the money, but the state was yet to receive it.